Thursday, November 27, 2014

We too, here on the
ground in Palestine, believe in miracles and hope the world will believe we are
human like all people of the world.

As I woke up to heavy rain and severe wind storms in one of
the highest mountain regions in Palestine, I gave glory to God to be alive for another day and continue to
keep my hope that all people of this region will learn to love humanity. The only good thing about the dense fog in
front of me is that I could not see the illegal Israeli settlement outside my
kitchen window. Settlements on the West
Bank have been a huge big obstacle to any frozen peace agreement for twenty
years between Israelis and Palestinians.
As the harsh weather and tough political conditions continue to be at an
all-time high, I was grateful for friends around the world who prayed for a
peaceful day (November 25th) during the opening of the new Taybeh
Winery introducing for the first time, Palestinian boutique wines. We were lucky the storm arrived at night
after having a successful and history-making day with many local and
international visitors. All of our
friends in America are celebrating a Happy Thanksgiving and we are truly thankful
for having a peaceful day. Glory be to
God for all things!

As a collaborative celebration, the Belgian Consul General
in Jerusalem selected our tiny village to celebrate for the first time in
Palestine the King’s Day, a type of national day for Belgium traditionally held
in Jerusalem by the consulate every year
during the fall with the actual birthday of King Philip being November 15th. However, as more countries around the world
are officially recognizing Palestine, we felt this decision to host the King’s
Day celebration was a personal support and solidarity of our existence. The Taybeh Golden Hotel, under construction
for many years, finally opened its door to welcome many dignitaries including
the Palestinian Prime Minister and the American Consul General in Jerusalem
along with the ambassador of Turkey and Japan and many other leaders including the
Greek Consul General.

The Taybeh Winery, on the street level of the eighty room Taybeh
Golden Hotel is a dream comes true for Nadim Khoury, the co-founder of Taybeh
Brewing Company along with my husband David. Following his dad's footsteps in challenging times, my nephew Canaan, Harvard class 2013, returned home to Palestine to
become the new winemaker and manage the winery with Roberto, an Italian wine maker using all state of the
art equipment from Italy.

The grapes from Taybeh and the surrounding towns of Aboud
and Birzeit were crushed August 2013 and bottled recently in the “Nadim” label
for Merlo, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah. “Nadim” in Arabic means “drinking companion"--what the family thought was the perfect name for the new wine to enter the international
market with a distinctive Palestinian identity.
This last harvest, white grapes from Hebron, were also crushed and will
be bottled in the spring for what we expect to be a delicious Sauvignon
Blanc. The 2013 Grand reserve Cabernet
Sauvignon reserve is aging in French oak barrels and hopefully will be bottled
just in time for Christmas. Although the
website and many things are still under construction, everyone felt it was a
historic day in Taybeh with the Belgian celebration and the introduction of the
new fine boutique Palestinian wines.

We are trying to do some good things under terrible
conditions and show that Palestine has a civilization of culture, art, music
and not only a great micro-brewed beer for twenty years but now a boutique wine
too and a theme hotel to go with it. We
were honored that some of the well-known Palestinian artists, Nabil Anani and
Tayser Barakat, lent their exquisite art to be displayed during the opening. Suheil
Zayad from Birzeit played the oud all evening while Joseph Doughman from
Bethlehem played the saxophone during the day.

As Jesus blessed the water to wine in Cana more than two
thousand years ago, I surely hope all the heavy rain will be a blessing for our
water shortage. As Fr. Louis from
Birzeit Latin parish said, “Taybeh is the new Cana,” because it serves as a
light in the region that has so much darkness today across the board,
politically, emotionally, culturally, intellectually and even with tough
weather conditions. But it was a
glorious day to have our parish priest, Fr. Daoud Khoury, offer a prayer in an ecumenical blessing with representatives
from the Russian, Coptic Patriarchate and His Eminence Archbishop Aris Shirvanian
from the Armenian Patriarchate with Archbishop Joseph-Jules Zerey from the
Greek-Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate of Jerusalem. Father Jack and Fr. Aziz, our local priests,
also gave their blessing. Pray with us
for better times in Palestine so we can see the end of military occupation in
our lifetime. However, in the meantime, Taybeh welcomes you not only for the
Taybeh Beer tour which might include an interview with Madees Khoury, the only female who
brews beer in Palestine, but an eye opening experience at the
Taybeh Winery also. “Eye opening”
because Palestinians are normal people like you and me.

The beautiful Bible verse in John (2:1-11) says that “ what
Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he
revealed his glory; and his disciples
believed in Him.” We too, here on the
ground in Palestine believe in miracles and hope the world will believe we are
human as all people of the world. And,
the best is now coming from Taybeh. Happy
Thanksgiving! Give thanks in all things.
(1 Tim. 5:18)

First, watch this and
then you will understand why so much violenceis encompassing Jerusalem.

It did not
start with the kidnapping of the three young settlers which Israel claims
to be the reason for retaliation on all
fronts.It did not start with the
occupation of the Palestinian
Territories in 1967.It has been an ongoing dispossession ever
since 1948 even after the Palestine National Council recognized Israel on 78% of historic Palestine in 1988.The onslaught onEast Jerusalem has been going on with a clear
agenda thatJerusalem
is the united eternal capital of Israel,
with a plan to build the Temple
to replace El-Haram El-Sharif.

Ironically Har
Nof where the events of today took place is originallya Palestinian suburbadjacent to Deir Yaseen where the infamous
massacre of the Palestinians took place in April 1948. That was the spark that terrorized the Palestinian residents of West Jerusalem that led to their exodus.

Yes indeed it
is brutal and completely unacceptable to
attack worshippers in their place of worship, as was the attack of settler doctor, BaruchGoldstein,
on Muslim worshippers during the month of Ramadan
at the Hebron Mosque in February 1994?Twenty nine Palestinian were killed and 125 wounded at the time.The epitaph on Goldstein’stombstone calls him a martyr with clean hands
and a pure heart.

As much as I
believe in un-armed resistance,it is
very sad to realize that the futility of the negotiations and the failure of the peace process to end the
occupation,on top of Israeli
provocations, are all leadingthe
Palestinian population of Jerusalem
to desperation as they feel completely
abandoned.While the International
community continues to claim the annexation of Jerusalem
as illegal and so arethe settlements, and
the demolishing of homes, no action has been taken to reverse the realities that Israel continues
to create on the ground.The young people of Jerusalemcannot sit still any more,simply
watching and resisting peacefully while their holiest site El-Haram El-Sharif
is being coveted and taken over while
the world is watching.The more
desperate those young people become, the more violence will prevail.We continue to hope for some wisdom to
prevail and a definite resolve on behalf
of the international community to put an end to Israel’s impunity and spare both
people further suffering.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

I
wish all of you a blessed Holy Nativity Fast. Tomorrow, we are
actually celebrating the transfer of the relics of St. George from Asia
Minor where he was martyred to Lod (next to the Tel Aviv airport now)
where his mother lived in ancient Palestine. It has been an annual
tradition that Christian communities from all corners of the Holy Land
gather in Lod to commemorate this special feast day in addition to the
one in April.

However, some
of you might know the ongoing violence in Jerusalem and the unrelenting
settlement expansion and police harassment, riots and marches inside
Israel have increased following the cold blood killing of an Arab youth
by police in Kafr Kanna. The Israelis and Palestinians have been
killing each other back and forth in revenge attacks for many months
now. Thus, many people in our community were simply too scared to get a
permit and travel to the original St. George Church to continue this
century old Christian tradition in memory of St. George the Great
Martyr. We pray for better times ahead and keep our hope in Christ.

Personally,
I wish I was in America instead of checkpoints where Israeli soldiers
are shooting kids throwing rocks. I am not sure if we are on the verge
of another uprising but may our Lord have mercy with the violence all
around.Maria Khoury, Ed.D. Taybeh

Friday, November 14, 2014

I have been reflecting on the many anniversaries during the
month of November, asidefrom the fact
that I turned 80 last November on the day my book “Reflections from Palestine – A Journey of
Hope” was launched, and that the birthday of my granddaughter’s best friend
Juman, falls on the 2nd of November.I am sure neither Juman nor her mother had much choice in determining
that day to coincide withthe
anniversary of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which the Palestinians consider
to be the root cause oftheirdispossession.

But then November 9 was the twenty fifth anniversary of the
collapse of the Berlin Wall.Whoever
thought that wall will ever collapse?That is why this is a very meaningful day for us, the Palestinians, as it gives us hope that the infamous Separation
Wall which separatesthe Palestinian territories from each other
in the name of security, will eventually collapse some day.However the 19thanniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak
Rabin on November 4 continues to remind
us that the whole peace process was a farce, and led usnowhere,while at the same timeit
shielded Israeli impunity as it continued to create new realities on the
ground.

November 11is
Armistice Day, or Veteran’s day as it is
called in the USA,
which marked the end of World War I in 1918. Again it makes us wonder at the
brutality of wars.As if the loss of
many lives in both World War I and World War II was not enough, the colonial
powers continued towage so many wars in
other peoples’ countries and under a variety ofpretexts.Will November 11 ever make those powers realize that wars are
not about solving problems but about greed, sale of armament, hegemonyand devastation.Devastation not only ofthe land and its natural resources, but
devastation of humanity and the mushrooming of new radical movements. It is very hard under the circumstances,
where we watch regions torn apart, to envisage any hope for an armistice day for our region or peace around
the whole world.

Ironically November 11 is also the tenth anniversary of the
death of Yasser Arafat.I remember I was
in Hawaii at
the time and we stayed up late with my cousin Diana and her husband Jerry to
watch the end of an era for the Palestinians.Of course Israel
has claimed him to be “no peace partner” despite all the concessions he made
for the sake of peace.In fact November 15 is the 26h anniversary of the Declaration of the Independence
of the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders, and it is an official
holiday in Occupied Palestine.I still
do not know what we are celebrating, after making such a compromise and still not being independent on that 22% of our
historic Palestine.But I know the teachers and students are
happy to have a long week end off.I
still remember when November 14 was an official holiday during the Jordan times,
as it was the birthday of King Hussein.Salwa,theschool principal at Rawdat El-Zuhur had the
same birthday, so her birthday was always an official holiday.